It was thirty years ago that a 17 year-old blues prodigy released the landmark album Ledbetter Heights – an album that would sell enough records to be declared platinum and, therefore, establish the career of Kenny Wayne Shepherd. 

This week, Kenny returns to WRCT’s Court’s in Session to announce that his 30th Anniversary Ledbetter Heights tour will include a stop at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg on April 19.  Kenny and Eric Jackson Lurie will discuss the tour, Kenny’s upcoming album, and spin tunes from Kenny’s latest release Young Fashioned Ways with blues legend Bobby Rush.  

This Thursday night — October 23 — at 8:00 p.m. – with a replay Sunday October 26 at 10:00 p.m. – right here on WRCT 88.3 FM and streaming at WRCT.org. 

The fourth week of October each year is Free Speech Week. This year, we were fortunate to spend some time with University of Delaware Communications Professor Jennifer Lambe while she was in Pittsburgh for the 2025 Eradicate Hate Summit.

This conversation covered a wide range of topics: How Pittsburgh’s reaction to the 2018 Tree of Life shooting differed from some politicians’ reaction to the 2025 shooting of Charlie Kirk; What the First Amendment does and doesn’t do; The importance of the First Amendment; How the economics of political campaigns and social media have helped make the “speech environment” radically different than when the First Amendment was enacted in 1791; and many other interesting topics.

The most important point Prof. Lambe made was that we need more true civil discourse between individuals, where we listen to each other and respect each other as people even when we disagree about politics, to help diffuse the divisiveness of our current political environment.

A very thought-provoking conversation.

Listen to the episode: Prof. Jennifer Lambe

Richard Gordon, host, audio editor, audio engineer, researcher
Recorded September 15, 2025; WRCT debut October 21, 2025

This week on Forbes Avenue, we discussed the history of the West View with Andrew Bensch, a former archivist for the borough.

We started the discussion by going all the way back to the Native American tribes of the area. Then we talked about when Pittsburgh was on the frontier and followed the history of West View up til today! We also talked about the rise and fall of West View Park, which was an amusement park that competed with Kennywood throughout most of the 1900s. Tune in to learn a fun local history lesson over fall break!

Listen to the episode: Andrew Bensch

Abriana Bensch, host, audio engineer, researcher
Riona Duncan, audio editor
Recorded April 18, 2025; WRCT debut October 14, 2025